Raising concerns of vote tampering, the Wayne County Board of
Canvassers is investigating a small number of ballots in Detroit's
election last month that appear to have been filled in by the same
person.

On Monday, day five of its recount of the Nov. 8 election, the board
examined eight ballots challenged by mayoral candidate Freman Hendrix.
The ballots appeared to contain similar handwriting. About 15 ballots
in the precinct could be affected, overall, observers and election
officials said.

The ballots, cast in District 7, Precinct 72, on the city's east side,
were filled out for write-in candidates in the mayoral, City Council,
clerk and Board of Education races. One ballot was a write-in vote for
the late Coleman Young for mayor. At least one other ballot was marked
for Hendrix and several more for Kilpatrick.

The board is to inspect the ballots more closely at a Thursday hearing and decide whether the ballots will be recounted.

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As many as 32,000 ballots cast in Detroit's November election may not
be included in a hand recount expected to start Thursday or Friday.
Under state law, precincts that are not in balance - those where the
number of ballots cast do not match the number of voters logged in at
each precinct - will not be included in the hand recount unless the
discrepancies are explained in poll workers' records.

A possible explanation would be that a voter messed up a ballot and
needed to cast another one. The city's elections department found 88
precincts were out of balance. The differences ranged from one to 36
ballots.

Slightly more than 32,000 ballots were cast in those 88 precincts,
according to election department data. Chris Thomas, the state's
elections director, said Tuesday that even if the ballots in those
precincts are not recounted by hand, the initial results tallied in
those precincts Nov. 8 will stand.